Professional athletes can have many reasons to admire someone from another sport, but one NBA player has put forth an interesting take on why Kirk Cousins is his favorite.
The observation and reasoning was part of an anonymous poll of NBA players conducted by The Athletic, with the question being posed as, “Who is your favorite current non-NBA athlete?”
“Kirk Cousins because he gets paid and doesn’t have to win or don’t have to do anything and made $400 million off of one playoff win,” the player said when asked for his reasoning. “Legend.”
Another NFL quarterback — Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens — topped the list, followed by women’s basketball superstar Caitlin Clark from the University of Iowa who is now headed to the WNBA.
Cousins recently signed a four-year, $180 million contract to join the Atlanta Falcons after playing the past six seasons for the Minnesota Vikings. Now 35 years old, he was a fourth-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft and played his first six seasons for the Washington Redskins.
In the NFL, Cousins has already made more than $230 million from his various contracts, a fact that is even more impressive when considering that he did not enter the league with a pricey first-round contract. Adding in the guaranteed money from his latest deal, he reportedly will begin the 2024 NFL season in second place in career earnings, behind only fellow quarterback Aaron Rodgers (now of the New York Jets).
This is despite the fact – as the NBA player pointed out — that Cousins has won just one playoff game, back in the 2019 NFL season with the Vikings against the New Orleans Saints. In fact, he has played in just five NFL playoff games total, most recently in the 2022 season, and has a regular season record of just 76-67-2.
In addition, though his individual statistics have at times been excellent, he has never been named to an All-Pro team and has never led the league in passing yards or touchdown passes in a single season. His record in prime-time games also leaves a lot to be desired.
Furthermore, he is coming off an Achilles injury that ended his season last year. So, perhaps his ability to land such a big contract with seemingly all of these things working against him is something worthy of legendary status after all.
